Hey guys, need some opionons on time lines for puppy training. i'm training my second chessie. the first one was done very loosely and we were lucky to have such a great dog come out of it, but only lucky. this time i want to use a more structured, not harsh, but more organized training plan. i've ready just about every training book out there, and they all differ so much, its frustrating. "Water Dog" leaves you thinking that you;ll have a finished dog in 9 months, while others tell you not to train til they're a year old. what experiences have you had and what would you suggest as far as approximate timelines for graduating from puppy play training to basics and then to more advanced. i realize that every dog is different, but i hope you could give me some generalizations. thanks !!!
aaron

I don't think you can put an exact timeline on training. It comes done to each different breed and each individual dogs with in a breed. Each breed has their own charcteristic it doesn't make breed better than the other you just have know how to adjust to the breed and the individual dog. I had one dog that got his 1st 2 started passes at 18 weeks old steady to shot and delivery to. He then got his seasoned pass at 12 months old even though he was ready earlier (hunting season) and his 1st 2 finished passes at 13 months. He has been a very special dog. My other dog past her 1st started at year old. The chessies are very good dog but are slower to mature than the labs. All I can say is watch your dog he/she will tell you when they are ready to move forward in training.

The other thing that really helped me and my dog was finding hunting retriever club to help with training and enjoy the company of other hunters

you can start OB anytime. keep it short and sweet but nearly everyday if you can. marks can be done as a puppy too. just keep them short and as the pup grows stretch it out. if it proves to be trouble then come back in with it. there really isn't much else you can do untill it loses its puppy teeth and is ready to be FF and CC. if your going that way you should have a dummy collar on EVERY time your training now so that when you turn it on the don't think its the collar thats getting them they think its you!! good luck man

Proudly owned by "HR A hunters dream of Westwind JH"

I quote HNTFSH ****Hunting is a form of training but not the first wave of it. *****

H2O and hunt-chessies are right on. As for following a specific time-line I would highly endorse ANY Mike Lardy system with Evan Graham in a not so distant second. Both are very structured and easy to follow. Alot of Lardy stuff is very expensive but well worth the price. Get over the sticker shock as you'll get what you pay for as well as what you put in. Follow any timeline with intelligence, common-sense and lots of dog reading. Like you know, every dog is different and just because you may have a dog that progresses slower than a projected time line doesnt mean you are doing something wrong or that your dog is ineffecient.

"It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling
into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from
falling into error."

Remember your new pup has been bred and born to retrieve, mark falls, swim, smell things (good and bad) and a whole bunch of other wonderful things that make it a hunting dog .The one thing it wasn't born with is obedience, that's the one big thing that was left for you. If you spent the entire first year on disipline, developeing memory, socializing and getting your new friend to trust you , You would be miles ahead of most trainers. In my humble opinion I would say it takes at the very least 3 years of decent training and enviroment enrichment to end up with a good duck dog. And the training never ends.
Don't get too hung up on a time schedule and in saying that, the sooner you start the better. Mom wolf has the whole litter trained to DO NOT MOVE, DO NOT MAKE A SOUND AND DO NOT CRAP IN OUR HOME before they are 4 weeks old. Take it from there. And one more thing, you could never expose the pup to eneough situations and shoot enough birds in nine months to have a finished retriever----So don't be in a big hurry.